Anything but the Truth
by Whisperwill
Summary: In an alley full of thugs, Senna and Monta are about to learn why truth sometimes ought to remain hidden. One shot.


**Disclaimer: Darn, I don't own Eyeshield 21. And shoot, I'm not making money off this fanfic, either...**

**A/N: Originally completed 08/14/12. Horizontal bars indicate change in scene or POV. Please review if you've a moment!**

**Anything but the Truth**

Little things could lead to big ones. Acts that seemed completely inconsequential could end up having lasting consequences that those involved in them weren't even aware of. That was what Sena Kobayakawa found out on that fateful morning—he and Taro Raimon both. Because it really didn't seem like such a big deal to drop by Yoichi Hiruma's house and meet up for practice.

Not that it was any simple task. But as "manager" of the Deimon High Devil Bats, Sena found himself asked by Mamori to round up the players. Before he could think up an excuse for not doing it, Sena found himself accepting the sheet she handed him with all the players' names, addresses, and phone numbers on it. So, to put up a brave front, he found himself heading over to Monta's to begin collecting Bats. And when the monkeylike little player heard what Sena was up to, he made a very noble gesture.

"How 'bout if I go with you?" he volunteered. It was a true sign of their tried-and-tested friendship. Anyone who had even heard the floating rumors about Hiruma wouldn't want to get within eyesight of him. And those who knew him _well_, as Sena and Monta unfortunately did, would usually be smarter than to get within ten feet of him. "You could use back-up, right?" Monta added.

Sena sighed a relieved sigh. "Yeah, that'd be great," he said. He and his friend took off running in the direction of the captain's home.

Neither Sena nor Monta had ever been here before, even though Hiruma's street really wasn't that far away from Sena's house. It was a nice-ish place, although a little rundown. The two of them paused at the head of an alley to consult Mamori's paper. Maybe that was their first mistake.

"What'choo doin' here, boys?" came a drawl from down the alley. Monta and Sena looked up to see an assemblage of tall, scruffy-looking teens saunter towards them. They looked like second-year high school students. The one who had spoken, a huge young man with small sunglasses, loomed over them. "Don't'choo know you're tresspassin'?"

"Oh—I-I'm sorry," Sena faltered, "we didn't know this was your uh…territory." Ignoring the common knowledge that the street was public property. The leader seemed to sense the chance for mockery behind the way Sena had phrased his words. His mouth curled dangerously close to a scowl. The shortest member of the Devil Bats hastened to change the subject. He waved his hands and glued a highly nervous smile to his face. "We're just leaving! We…we're looking for Hiruma, that's all."

To his surprise, the thugs stirred with laughter and muttered among themselves. Not only did they seem to recognize the name, but it was funny to them. Sena couldn't see why. "Oh, is that right?" a boy near the back hooted. "You're looking for Hiruma?"

"That's the oldest excuse in the book, kid," the leader informed the two boys. "And it ain't gonna work on us. See, we ain't stupid." He leered with his mouth open in a way that seemed to belie his claim. "And if you think you're gonna be leaving…well, let's just say…" He and the rest of his followers swept around the two Bats, surrounding them. "…You're not going anywhere."

* * *

From his weed-choked front yard, Yoichi Hiruma turned his face to the sky and sniffed the air with his unnaturally pointed nose. "Cerebrus." His dog emerged from the dog flap in the front door and came to his master when Hiruma beckoned. Together they headed out, the pit bull looking only marginally more fearsome than the adolescent who walked beside.

Like his canine companion, Hiruma could smell fear. It was just one of the many queer skills he had acquired in his short lifetime.

* * *

Monta's eyes were huge beneath his huge eyebrows. "Whoa!" he cried out when he thought he saw the glint of a knife. "We don't want any trouble!"

"If you didn't want any _trouble_," a boy with long hair asked, cracking the knuckles of one hand against the palm of another, "why'd you set foot on our _turf_?"

"We've never been here before; so we didn't know it was your turf," Sena said quickly. "That's the truth. We had no idea—"

"You want the _truth_, shrimp? The _truth_ is that we're gonna bash your skull in!" the head honcho snarled at Sena and, by extention, Monta.

"But we're with _Hiruma!"_ Monta pointed out in a moment of desperation. Horrified, he watched the boys' faces again light up with glee when they heard it. Why weren't they intimidated? Why weren't they giving way without a fight? The mention of Hiruma's name, the claim to be "in his good books" (as if there _was_ such a thing), ought to put the bravest soul to flight.

"The devil don't make friends, kid," came the flat answer. The bullies closed in on their quarry.

"But it's _true_," Sena maintained his position doggedly to the last, even as he and his friend raised their arms to shield their faces.

"That's right—they're with me," the voice of Hiruma confirmed, shocking everyone present and none more so than Sena and Monta themselves. The captain of the Devil Bats strode up to them with his dog on his heels. Reaching his lanky arms out, he put his hands on his teammates' heads and moved them out of the line of fire and behind him.

"Hiruma!" The gang's leader didn't seem to know what to say at first. He regarded Hiruma with distaste. His friends gathered around him as if to visibly unite in their spitefulness. The protagonist on each side scowled into the other's eyes. Finally the sunglasses boy smirked and raised one eyebrow. "You have a posse now?"

Sena blinked. What was this, an old western? He looked at his team captain and for some reason saw that Hiruma's shoulders had stiffened. As silly as the words sounded, they seemed to be a threat.

* * *

Hiruma gnashed his sharp teeth as his keen mind raced. Everything depended on how he answered this question. Could he just avoid saying anything definite? No, this was a stand-off no matter how he looked at it. Baby-sitting? He tossed the idea out even as he thought of it. _No way_ he would be caught _dead_ doing that. The truth—that they were a football team—was out of the question. Sena was out of uniform, besides which, Hiruma had always desired to keep a low profile about playing his beloved sport, long before the peewee runner had joined up. There was only one answer to give. Hiruma ran the consequences through his mind. It wouldn't be pretty; in fact, it had the potential to make life for Hiruma a whole lot more dangerous. But at least this way, the pipsqueaks would never return to this street again. And it _was_ the perfect way to avoid the truth. He swallowed to steel himself.

* * *

"Yeah." His glare at the rival leader was now pure scorn. "That's right."

His terse reply shocked everyone else present, even Cerebrus. Then, one by one, the boys started laughing. Through the hooting and guffaws, Sena could hear things like, "_That's_ your _gang?_"

"Ooh, I'm scared _now!"_

"Really got yourself a couple of winners, there, don't ya?"

Cerebrus started barking and growling in his master's defense, but all Hiruma said was a muttered, "Heel." The sunglasses-clad leader waited until they could all have a good laugh. When the amusement had died down, he leaned towards Hiruma. Monta and Sena shrank back behind him. They didn't quite catch the low threat breathed into their captain's face.

"You've always been the only one on this block without a gang. You wouldn't join _us_," the leader recounted with a wry grin, "but you didn't join anyone else, either. And we left you alone this long because of that." Both of them already knew this. Hiruma narrowed his already slitty eyes. Get to the point. "But if you're gonna take sides against us…" The entire gang pressed closer, silently echoing their ringleader's threat. "You'll have a war on your hands. And those shrimps of yours?" He grinned unpleasantly. "We catch them alone, and they'll be food for your little dog. Y'know?"

Hiruma whipped out his signature machine gun. He was the only minor in Japan who managed to get his hands on heavy weapons. And this model in particular had seen him through a number of nasty encounters. "Stay away from us," he ordered them flatly. "Unless you wanna end up a chalk outline on the sidewalk." He propped his weapon against his shoulder and used his free hand to snatch his teammates. His long fingers could close over both heads of hair at once. He turned his back on the thugs and began to drag them away. The gang members watched them go. Petrified Sena was smart enough to clamp down on his scream and turn it into a moan of pain. The Bats' star catcher clawed at his head with stubby fingers, letting out a steady stream of "Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow…"

Hiruma dragged them halfway around the block before he turned on them. Swearing at them in a multitude of different ways, he bellowed, "You _pipsqueaks! Idiots!"_ He dropped Monta and the gun and went after Sena first. The tiny running back screeched in terror as Hiruma hefted him over his head. Sena feared Hiruma (wisely so) much more so than he did any delinquent. As he had during the first time they met, the Deimon football captain threw poor Sena high into the air. Except this time he didn't catch the boy on his way down. Then he whirled on Monta and grabbed the front of his shirt. "You _monkey-brained moron!"_ Over and over he shouted insults, slamming Monta against the wall of a building with each word. Once Sena's body thudded to the pavement, he grabbed him, too, before he could get away. Shaking both of them by the collars with demonic fury, he might just have murdered them both on the spot if Ryokan Kurita hadn't chosen that moment to walk up.

"Hey, are we practicing already?" he called happily, assuming that Hiruma's wrath was due to a football error and not an everyday error.

Hiruma dropped the two boys into a heap. "Yeah," he grunted. He aimed a kick at them and scattered them like bowling pins. Sena and Monta scurried to hide behind Kurita's girth.

"Mercy!" squeaked Monta.

But Hiruma was ignoring them now. "Back to the field!" he snapped. The two of them stayed in relative safety behind Kurita's back as Hiruma stalked on ahead. The Devil Bats' center lineman looked over his shoulder at them.

"What was that all about?" he wondered aloud.

"We didn't do it!" wailed Sena.

"We were just rounding up everyone for practice!" Monta added. Kurita turned around to them in some surprise.

"You mean you were going to his _house_?" The hulking player pointed a fat finger at his fatter body. "But…no one's allowed to go to his house except _me_," he told them. "It's too dangerous for anyone else."

"You're telling _me_," agreed Sena, pressing a hand to his back to straighten out what he hoped wasn't permanent damage. Monta nodded in fervent agreement. The two boys summoned images of the shadowed face of a demon, its eyes glinting out of the darkness. They shivered as one. Kurita's mental picture, though, involved a bloodthirsty gang that haunted the alleys and went after anything that weighed less than two hundred pounds. He nodded emphatically.

But none of the boys would ever know what the other was thinking. Ryokan put his arms around his much shorter comrades, and together they followed their captain back to the high school.

-End!


End file.
